The Mouse House Takes a Hit

A four percent drop in revenues from theme parks and lower occupancy at company-owned hotels ringing Anaheim's Disneyland and its resorts elsewhere, combined with declines in other company sectors, contributed to falling first quarter earnings for the Walt Disney Co. The Mouse House earned 41 cents a share in its first quarter ended Dec. 27, 2008, down from 63 cents the previous year. According to the company press release:

Parks and Resorts revenues for the quarter decreased 4% to $2.7 billion and segment operating income decreased 24% to $382 million. Lower operating income was due to decreases at the domestic operations and at Disneyland Resort Paris.

Lower operating income at the domestic operations reflected a decline in attendance and occupied room nights at Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort, mark to market adjustments on fuel hedge contracts and labor and other cost inflation, partially offset by cost mitigation activities.

Members of Mouse Planet are too busy to worry about their beloved Disneyland, fixating instead on who is to blame for the shitty economy -- liberals, conservatives or each other -- on a long, rambling thread that began in September and was still going strong today (Warning: you must set aside several hours to read through to the end).

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.